Tangle Garden

At Paper Traders, I am hosting a colored Zentangle® art swap. Zentangle art was created by Rick Roberts & Maria Thomas. You can discover more about this method on their website: Zentangle.com.  Below are the cards that I created for this swap... a relaxing way to catch up on my DVR recordings!

Legs

Recently, I hosted an ATC swap on Paper Traders with a "Legs" theme.  The backgrounds on my cards were all hand drawn and watercolored.

Graffiti

While I don't think it is ever okay to deface property, I do think that some forms of graffiti are very artistic. That was the inspiration for an ATC swap I'm hosting on Paper Traders. My rules were that it must be hand-drawn and not contain any profanity or nudity. These are the cards that I made. I colored the letters using a combination of oil pastels and Marvy markers... and a lot of elbow grease with my paper stumps.

Catching Up on Round Robin Journals

Our Paper Traders group is trying to finish up last year's journal round robin... the books have fallen a bit behind and we're all working hard to get them finished soon. This week, I have completed my spreads in three journals...

The first one is for Keron's journal on Freedom. I chose Free Agency as my theme and included the lyrics from the hymn, Know This That Every Soul Is Free. I hand-drew and colored a picture of Eve and the apple using the new Coloursoft pencils I got from my Mom for my birthday - love them! Although the artwork is original, the idea came from another piece I saw awhile back on a religious website... however, there was no credit given to the artist so I don't know who to thank for this concept.

This second spread is for Abby's "American Idol" journal where we were supposed to feature an American that we admired. I chose Gordon B. Hinckley as my idol - he was a great man whom I admired and appreciated immensely.


Lastly, is my spread for Diana's "Doors & Windows" journal. We were supposed to choose a quote and illustrate it in some way. The door on this house opens to reveal another hidden image. Also, all of the flowers are heavily glittered to add dimension to the page.


So, I'm caught up on journals for the moment... although another one should be making it's way to me soon. I'm certainly looking forward to having my "Hands" journal to finally make it home, too.

Emotive Faces

I made these ATC's for Connie's "Emotive Faces" swap on Paper Traders. I used Bernie Berlin's technique for painting over magazine photos, like the French Model card I made earlier this year.

Zentangle ATC Swap

Letha is hosting a Zentangle ATC swap on Paper Traders. It's mixed-media so pretty much anything goes. I started with a rubber stamped face image and then just started playing from there. Admittedly, these could be a lot better but they're not too bad for a beginner =)

Update: Thanks, everyone, for the feedback... Yes, I just stamped the face images with permanent ink right in the middle of my plain white ATC's. Then I got out my Micron pens in different widths and started doodling. I didn't really have much of a plan and some of the larger black areas are where I goofed up and just decided to fill in over the top - LOL!

Two New ATC's

I made this ATC for Keron's 12 Days of Christmas blog contest. She shared free images for 12 days and this girl was from the Fifth Day of Christmas. Keron explained that the five golden rings in the song represent the first five books of the old testament, so I used them on the background of this card along with a verse about God's love from Deuteronomy. The rest of the background images were torn from napkins.

This ATC was an attempt at Bernie Berlin's gessoed magazine image technique. This was actually a lot of fun and not too difficult. It's hard to tell from the scan, but I painted metallic streaks in the woman's hair and used a tiny plastic crystal for her earring.

The Artist's Palette

These are the pages I did for Connie's round robin journal on Paper Traders. Her theme was "The Artist's Palette" and she asked us to use paint and try to expand our abilities by challenging ourselves. Since I am still in the early stages of exploring my drawing talents (as in, do I have any?) and I am not very inexperienced at watercolor either, these pages were definitely a challenge. I found the water especially hard to do. I'm not sure if you can really see all the details in here or if the scan washed them out but there are swirly white places to give the suggestion of foam and spray.


I should have taken the quote to heart and exercised a little more patience in writing it out... my lines tended to slant upward and the handwriting is sloppier than I would have liked.

Doodling

I did a little doodling practice on the back of my business cards at work this week... (don't tell the boss!)

I read about this "twist" technique in a zentangle newsletter:

For this one, I just drew a squiggle that ended up looking like a rabbit (a complete coincidence) so I decided to just go with it:

More Intuitive Watercolors

I made a whole sheet of splotchy watercolor and then cut it into ATC-sized pieces. Sometimes it was really hard to see something and other times it was easy... but it's always hard to draw them in because I am not very talented at drawing. If you want to see some really good results with this technique, check out Connie's cards on her blog: http://stampgram.blogspot.com I think mine may have been a little better if I hadn't left the watercolors quite so dark.










This last one was actually my second attempt... not part of the "big sheet" I made the above cards from:

Intuitive Watercolor

I recently purchased Bernie Berlin's Artist Trading Card Workshop and am hoping to try out each technique. Below is my first "intuitive watercolor."

Acorn Sketch

A few years ago, while visiting the Puget Sound, I went to the Seattle Temple. While there, I saw thousands of acorns on the ground under an oak tree. I searched and searched for one that still had its cap on and, when I finally found one, I saved it as a memento of my trip. Later, I was so sad to realize that as the nut dried, it shrunk... and the cap came off! But I still have kept it in my little jar of keepsakes.

I decided to use it as my model for a sketching exercise. With the positive response I got on my drawn animals, I thought that maybe it was time I got over my fear of drawing.